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Crisp Pastry (Apple with sugar)
the apple with sugar and lemon-peel shred fine, taking as little of the apple-juice as possible; bake in thin paste, in a quick oven; a quarter of an hour will do when small. Orange or quince marmalade is a great improvement. 0
A brief nineteenth-century note for small apple pastries — closer to a turnover or puff than a pie. The instructions assume a cook who already knows how to make and roll shortcrust.
- "A quick oven"Roughly 400\450F in modern terms; the equivalences given in period sources vary. Thin pastry with a raw fruit filling wants high heat so the crust sets and colours before the apple releases its liquid.
- The hinge: keep the filling dry"Taking as little of the apple-juice as possible" is the whole instruction. Grate or chop the apple, then drain it, or toss it with the sugar and let it stand and pour off what collects. Sugar draws juice out fast, so mix and fill at the last moment.
- "Thin paste"A plain shortcrust or puff, rolled thin; the recipe gives no thickness, so about 1/8 inch is a reasonable modern guess.
- Fifteen minutes "when small"The recipe gives no size; for individual pastries of a few inches this is plausible, and larger ones would need proportionately longer. Slicing or grating the apple thin helps it cook through in that span.
- Lemon-peelPared zest shredded fine, no white pith. The recipe specifies no quantity; a few teaspoons of finely grated zest per pound of apple is an editorial suggestion only.
- Choice of appleA firm cooking apple that holds its shape in the oven, such as Granny Smith or Golden Delicious, rather than a variety that collapses to sauce and floods the pastry.
- The marmaladeThe recipe says only that orange or quince marmalade "is a great improvement," most likely a spoonful added to the apple. Quince marmalade of the period was a stiff, sliceable paste, so modern quince paste (membrillo) is nearer the mark than a runny jelly.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantities; as a rough working estimate, a pound of apples with about 12 oz of pastry would make a dozen or so small pastries. Serve warm; the crust softens within a few hours.
Small enclosed fruit pastries of this kind were standing items in British household cookery long before Victorian recipe books tidied them up, and the terse wording here is typical of a period when instructions were reminders rather than procedures. The call for a "quick oven" suits the brick oven, which was hottest just after firing and cooled through the day. The suggestion of orange or quince marmalade points to the older sense of marmalade as a thick boiled fruit paste -- the word comes from the Portuguese marmelada, a quince preserve, the fruit being high enough in pectin to set stiff -- and a spoonful would give a plain apple filling body and perfume without adding liquid.